Allegiant Alternate Ending
by dragonwings948
Summary: NEW AND EDITED! Were you ticked off at the end of Allegiant? Me too. So I wrote an alternate ending that I think is truer to the characters and concludes the trilogy better.


**A/N: Hey, so...I did a thing...**

**This was prompted by two of my sisters because we all read Allegiant and decided that we thought the ending was dumb. Not just because Tris died, but because of the way it was done. I personally don't think Tris should have died. She came too far for that, and I feel like Roth didn't set it up the right way for her to die. So my sisters told me I should rewrite the end, and I did. Because why not. **

**This starts in the middle of Chapter 50 of Allegiant. The first line of my story is from the book, so you know where I'm starting. If you don't have the book with you, it's basically right before Tris jumps to the device thing and David shoots her. When it switches to Tobias' POV, I skipped all the stuff about watching Peter take the serum and going back to the compound; I just started where he's at the compound. **

**I also wouldn't end the book where I left this off, but I didn't feel like writing the actual ending of the book. So yeah. Here it goes...**

**TRIS**

"I didn't come here to steal anything, David."

I tense my body, ready to spring toward the device.

"Tris, duck!" A sharp cough accents the last word.

_Caleb. _

My self-preservation instinct kicks in. I don't think; I _do. _

David fires his gun over me, and I see a body fly to the right in my peripheral vision. He then directs the gun toward me, and I roll to the left, immediately springing into a leap toward the wheelchair. A shot goes off. I don't feel anything.

I land on top of David, my forward weight forcing the wheelchair to tip over. I pin him down with my knees and wrench the gun from his grasp. I finally turn my head to the right, tears already welling up in my eyes. I know what I'm going to see.

David hadn't fired at me.

Caleb hunches over a silver keypad, his finger shaking as he punches a green button. A beep sounds, and then a churning sound. My brother stands in a pool of red, expanding every second. And then he collapses into it.

Blood is a strange color. Dark.

"Caleb!" As the scream rips from my throat, I swing the gun in the air with my uninjured arm and hit David over the head as hard as I can. His eyes close and his head lolls to the side. I drop the gun and roll off of him, panic welling up inside of me as Caleb doesn't move.

"Caleb," I say, my voice low and urgent as I slide into the blood, _his _blood, and hold his head in my lap. Blood seeps through his shirt, and I press my hand over the wound in his chest as if I can stop it.

I can't.

His eyes are barely open, but he sighs. A cough rattles his body, and blood trickles out of his mouth, staining his fair skin. I notice then that he has a gun in his hand; _my _gun, the one I had left in the hallway.

"I couldn't shoot him, Tris, I just couldn't…"

"It's okay," I say. I think that deep down, we're both Abnegation. We had both made mistakes, but when it came to the end we had both chosen selflessness.

Caleb coughs again and licks his lips.

"The death serum?" I whisper, wondering how he survived.

"Would've…killed me if he didn't. I barely made it through but I…" He coughs again and I feel the spatters of blood on my face. "I had to. I couldn't…I couldn't let you…" His eyes begin to drift close.

"No, Caleb." I shake him a little, my voice only a squeak as my throat closes shut. "Please."

He finds my hand and presses it lightly. "I love you, Beatrice. And I'm sorry…"

His eyes close. A second later, his body is limp in my arms. The gun clatters to the ground.

"Caleb." I hug him to me, squeezing him like I can wake him up. My tears begin to fall, mixing with the dark blood. I see how I should have forgiven him a long time ago. I see how our roles would be reversed if he hadn't come after me. He had traded his life for mine. "I forgive you," I sob, like they are the magic words that will bring him back to life. "I forgive you."

Nothing.

A hiss sounds, and I smell the acrid vapor of the memory serum. I can feel it in my head, tugging at my memories, but something in me holds on.

I press my lips to Caleb's forehead. I close my eyes and hold my brother, almost wishing that the serum works on me. I don't want to remember how he used to smile when he made me laugh, or how we would throw potato peelings at each other while making dinner.

I want to forget.

Nothing matters anymore.

**TOBIAS**

We walk through the abandoned security checkpoint without stopping. I'm holding my breath. On the other side, I see Tris, and all the air in my body whooshes out of my mouth. I don't know why, but there had been a feeling deep down in my gut saying that something terrible would happen.

Though, judging by the look on her face, I suppose something terrible _did _happen.

Christina must have been harboring that same feeling, because she lets out a long sigh beside me.

_Of course, _I think as I take in Tris' tear streaked face. _Caleb._

Tris catches my eye and sprints toward me, her left arm bandaged and dangling at her side. I catch her in my arms and she slumps against me, her body shuddering with sobs. I feel her tears begin to soak through my shirt and I hold her tight, rubbing my hand over her back.

I hate it when she cries, because it makes me want to cry too. But I stay strong for her and say softly, "I'm sorry, Tris. I'm so sorry." I could say the words with conviction only for her sake; Caleb had never been on my good side, and I wasn't sure that I could ever forgive him.

"It was my fault," she mumbled. "I should have been quicker, I should have…" A sob breaks off her sentence.

I look up in confusion at her words. Cara meets my eyes, a bandage on her head and the side of her face riddled with dark bruises.

"She went in to the Weapons Lab instead of Caleb," she offers, as if reading my unspoken question.

I go rigid with shock, though really, I should have seen this coming. Slowly, I pull Tris away from me and hold her at arm's length. I squeeze her shoulders to make sure she's real.

"How did you make it through the death serum?" I whisper, the words barely audible.

Tris wipes an arm over her eyes, clearing away the tears though more replace them within a few seconds. "I don't know. I just did."

I often think that Tris, in and of herself, is impossible; the way she always survives, always keeps going. But this, _this, _pushes it over the top. She must be a god, immortal, inhuman. She had literally defeated death.

However, I am still confused. If she got through the death serum and activated the memory serum, why is she crying?

"Then Caleb…?" I ask Tris, unsure of how to finish my thought.

Her chest heaves with another sob. "David was waiting for me in the Weapons Lab. But then Caleb…" She takes a deep breath to steady herself. "He came in to save me. He activated the serum and David shot him…" Her eyes brim over with tears again.

I pull her to me, stroking her hair and letting her cry in silence. Christina steps forward, her eyes glassy, and places a comforting hand on Tris' back.

In that moment, I forgive Caleb. I don't know about an afterlife, or whether he can hear me, but I say it silently in my head. I hope he knows that I'm grateful.

Because without Tris, I don't know what I would become.


End file.
